Monday, March 21, 2016

Ever wonder what the heck a volt is, anyway? Why you can have 50,000 volts in a nonlethal taser that any schmuck can acquire online, but the electric chair only needs the comparatively lesser amount of 2000 volts to make you dead, dead, dead?

That links to an illustrated, interactive explanation, which uses the comparative analogy of water flowing through a pipe to explain electricity flowing through a wire.

Or you can just read the text that I robbed from a website that explains it all.

You should do both, you know. You really should. Because it exercises your left brain AND your right brain.

Here's the text that I robbed:

When describing voltage, current, and resistance, a common analogy is a water tank. In this analogy, charge is represented by the water amount, voltage is represented by the water pressure, and current is represented by the water flow. So for this analogy, remember:

Water = Charge
Pressure = Voltage
Flow = Current

Consider a water tank at a certain height above the ground. At the bottom of this tank there is a hose.

Voltage is like the pressure created by the water.

The pressure at the end of the hose can represent voltage. The water in the tank represents charge. The more water in the tank, the higher the charge, the more pressure is measured at the end of the hose.

We can think of this tank as a battery, a place where we store a certain amount of energy and then release it. If we drain our tank a certain amount, the pressure created at the end of the hose goes down. We can think of this as decreasing voltage, like when a flashlight gets dimmer as the batteries run down. There is also a decrease in the amount of water that will flow through the hose. Less pressure means less water is flowing, which brings us to current.

Current

We can think of the amount of water flowing through the hose from the tank as current. The higher the pressure, the higher the flow, and vice-versa. With water, we would measure the volume of the water flowing through the hose over a certain period of time. With electricity, we measure the amount of charge flowing through the circuit over a period of time. Current is measured in Amperes (usually just referred to as “Amps”). An ampere is defined as 6.241*1018 electrons (1 Coulomb) per second passing through a point in a circuit. Amps are represented in equations by the letter “I”.

Let’s say now that we have two tanks, each with a hose coming from the bottom. Each tank has the exact same amount of water, but the hose on one tank is narrower than the hose on the other.

These two tanks create different pressures.

We measure the same amount of pressure at the end of either hose, but when the water begins to flow, the flow rate of the water in the tank with the narrower hose will be less than the flow rate of the water in the tank with the wider hose. In electrical terms, the current through the narrower hose is less than the current through the wider hose. If we want the flow to be the same through both hoses, we have to increase the amount of water (charge) in the tank with the narrower hose.

These two tanks create the same pressure.

This increases the pressure (voltage) at the end of the narrower hose, pushing more water through the tank. This is analogous to an increase in voltage that causes an increase in current.

Now we’re starting to see the relationship between voltage and current. But there is a third factor to be considered here: the width of the hose. In this analogy, the width of the hose is the resistance. This means we need to add another term to our model:

Consider again our two water tanks, one with a narrow pipe and one with a wide pipe.

The tank with the narrow pipe creates a higher resistance.

It stands to reason that we can’t fit as much volume through a narrow pipe than a wider one at the same pressure. This is resistance. The narrow pipe “resists” the flow of water through it even though the water is at the same pressure as the tank with the wider pipe.

The narrow pipe resists the flow.

In electrical terms, this is represented by two circuits with equal voltages and different resistances. The circuit with the higher resistance will allow less charge to flow, meaning the circuit with higher resistance has less current flowing through it.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

I just thought of something really, really stupid, that I only just realized, after 30 some odd years. What happened as blue laws, back when I was a kid, in Texas, have now distilled down to just liquor stores. Taught to be the only commercial purveyor to resent the 'closed on Sunday' law, which now only applies to them.

It's political religion, being forced down the throat of only one, just one, particular type of sinner. In Texas. Every other sin of this type is ok, though. But only at certain times. But not really, though... the ok part, that is.

Distraction from Imminent Despair

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Zounds cried the astounded clown in a gown who was bound for down town as he frowned at the resounding sound of the renowned crown that he'd found as it wound up on a round mound surrounded by abounding brown ground near his half drowned hound from around the pound. Meh.